#MGM Police Station

[townpostin]

Pickup Van Overturns in Jamshedpur, One Dead, Many Injured

Accident in Daladali-Itamara leaves one dead and several injured; driver flees scene. A pickup van carrying laborers overturned in Jamshedpur’s MGM police station area between Daladali and Itamara on Wednesday morning at around 8:30 AM. JAMSHEDPUR – Around 8:30 a.m. on Wednesday, a pickup van that was carrying laborers overturned erratically in a field located between Daladali and Itamara, under…

[justforbooks]

The director and producer Norman Jewison, who has died aged 97, had a career dedicated for the most part to making films that, while entertaining, included socio-political content. His visual flair, especially in the use of colour, spot-on casting and intelligent use of music, enabled him to raise sometimes thin stories into highly watchable films.

He hit the high spot critically and commercially with In the Heat of the Night (1967), which starred Sidney Poitier as a northern US city police detective temporarily held up in a small southern town and Rod Steiger as the local sheriff confronted with the murder of a wealthy industrialist. The detective mystery plot was perhaps mainly the vehicle for an enactment of racial prejudices and hostilities culminating in a grudging respect on both sides, but it worked well. The final scene, much of it improvised, in which the two men indulge in something approaching a personal conversation, was both moving and revealing.

The film won five Academy awards – for best picture, best adapted screenplay, best editing, best sound and, for Steiger, best actor – and gave Jewison the first of his three best director nominations; the others were for Fiddler on the Roof, his 1971 adaptation of the Broadway musical, and the romantic comedy Moonstruck (1987). In 1999 Jewison was the winner of the Irving G Thalberg memorial award from the academy for “a consistently high quality of motion picture production”.

The son of Dorothy (nee Weaver) and Percy Jewison, he was born and brought up in Toronto, Ontario, where his father ran a shop and post office. Educated at the Malvern Collegiate Institute, a Toronto high school, Jewison studied the piano and music theory at the Royal Conservatory in the city, and served in the Canadian navy during the second world war. On discharge, he went to the University of Toronto, paying his way by working at a variety of jobs, including driving a taxi and occasional acting.

After graduating with a bachelor of arts degree, in 1950 he set off with $140 on a tramp steamer to the UK, where he landed a job with the BBC, acting and writing scripts. On his return to Canada two years later, he joined the rapidly expanding television industry, producing and directing variety shows for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Jewison was spotted by the William Morris talent agency and invited to New York, where he signed with CBS and was given the unenviable task of rescuing the once successful show Your Hit Parade, which was by then displaying signs of terminal decline. He revamped the entire production and took it back to the top of the ratings. He directed episodes of the variety show Big Party and The Andy Williams Show, and specials for Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Harry Belafonte, Jackie Gleason and Danny Kaye.

On the Belafonte special, Jewison had white chains dangling above the stage, an image that displeased many southern TV stations, which refused to screen the show. This was the first indication of his stance on racism.

Success brought him to the notice of Tony Curtis, who had his own production company at Universal, and Jewison began a three-year contract with 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), starring Curtis. This was followed by the likable but light Doris Day comedies The Thrill of It All (1963), Send Me No Flowers (1964) and The Art of Love (1965).

In 1965 he got out of his contract to make the first film of his choice, MGM’s The Cincinnati Kid, starring Steve McQueen (the Kid) and Edward G Robinson (the Man) and centring on a professional poker game between the old master and the young challenger. He took over the project from Sam Peckinpah, tore up the original script by Paddy Chayefsky and Ring Lardner, and commissioned Terry Southern, the result getting him noticed as a more than competent studio director.

In 1966 he made the beguiling but commercially unsuccessful comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming, about a Russian submarine stranded off the coast of Cape Cod. This was at the height of the cold war and gained him a reputation for being a “Canadian pinko”, although it was nominated for a best picture Oscar.

In the Heat of the Night was followed by The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) in which McQueen and Faye Dunaway played thief and insurance investigator respectively and engaged in a chess game that evolved into one of the longest onscreen kisses, as the camera swirls around and around above their heads. The theme song, The Windmills of Your Mind, was a hit and the film a success.

Fiddler on the Roof, with a silk stocking placed by Jewison across the camera lens to provide an earth-toned quality, won Oscars for cinematography, music and sound, and a nomination for Chaim Topol in his signature role of Tevye.

Jesus Christ Superstar (1973), his adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s rock opera, and Rollerball (1975), starring James Caan, were followed by F.I.S.T. (1978), a tale of union corruption starring Sylvester Stallone as an idealistic young organiser who sells out, and And Justice for All (1979), starring Al Pacino, a deeply ironic portrayal of the legal world.

A Soldier’s Story (1985), based on the Pulitzer prize-winning play and including an early performance from Denzel Washington, dealt with black soldiers who risked their lives “in defence of a republic which didn’t even guarantee them their rights”, and some of whom had internalised the white man’s vision of them.

Moonstruck, a somewhat daft love story but a tremendous box office success and for the most part a critical one, won the Silver Bear and best director for Jewison at the Berlin film festival and was nominated for six Oscars, winning for best screenplay, best actress for Cher and best supporting actress for Olympia Dukakis.

Then came Other People’s Money (1991), a caustic and amusing comedy on the new world of corporate finance and takeovers, in which Danny DeVito played a money hungry vulture, made largely in response to Reagan’s era of deregulation, and The Hurricane (1999) in which Jewison again worked with Washington, who played the real life boxer Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, falsely convicted of a triple murder and imprisoned for years before the conviction was quashed. The latter film aroused controversy over its alleged manipulation of some facts and, despite its undoubted qualities, this fracas probably contributed to it being commercially disappointing.

In the early 1990s, Jewison had begun preparations for a film on the life of Malcolm X, and had secured Washington to play the title role, when Spike Lee gave his strongly expressed opinion that only a black film-maker could make this story. The two met, and Jewison handed over the film to Lee.

Jewison’s last film, The Statement (2003), starred Michael Caine as a Nazi war criminal on the run. He was also producer for films including The Landlord (1970), The Dogs of War (1980), Iceman (1984) and The January Man (1989).

He had returned to Canada in 1978, living on a ranch north of Toronto with his wife Dixie, whom he had married in 1953. There he reared Hereford cattle, grew tulips and produced his own-label maple syrup. In 1988 he founded the Canadian Centre for Advanced Film Studies, now known as the Canadian Film Centre, in Toronto.

He was a confirmed liberal, a man of integrity who turned in his coveted green card in protest at the Vietnam war and saw film not only as entertainment but also as a conduit for raising serious issues.

Dixie (Margaret Dixon) died in 2004. In 2010 he married Lynne St David, who survives him, as do two sons, Kevin and Michael, and a daughter, Jennifer, from his first marriage.

🔔 Norman Frederick Jewison, film director, producer and screenwriter, born 21 July 1926; died 20 January 2024

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at Just for Books…?

[zooterchet]

Work for US Navy (Extra-Range Station, Megaman MUSH)

Leadership:

"Duo": Shaun Wilcox, Hawaiian Coastal Engineer, US Navy Japan.

"Libra": James Holmes, DC Comics Development, Mossad Counter-Bay Station.

"Leo": Jeffrey Lange, Cleveland Rotary Association, Finance and Debitures Apartment.

Duo:

"Blueberry": Police code on APB scanner, to catch "ranger patrols", off cented Mounted and Royal Mounted sections (Canadian-German, Protestant Universalist).

"WTC Location Grab": Profiling of Osama Bin Laden, three days after 9/11, to DC Comics Location and Transition Wards, Mossad Afghanistan; Tora Bora Prison Complex.

"San Andreas": Capture of Toris Nelby, British Co Anchor Author, "Crack Underground"; while in live transit of threat of CIA agent Peter Tsapatsaris, "Nails", posing as "Peebo" on internet as fraud of Russian-Jewry infiltrating CIA Annex Three; Winchester Frauds, IDF Biotech Experiments. Toris Nelby, "Peebo", detained and "destroyed", by fired rounds, from Eric Frein.

Libra:

"British Exemplar": Takeover of Japan by Warerra Party, masquerading Clone Wars film, recently released, by "Lucas Arts", as actual factual plan of attack; Pearl Harbor, as represented by "Kleinmen", Rohypnol dealers for Mossad.

"Gutwill Five": Seizure of criminal resources and allies of Framingham Narcotics, rogue Israeli Defense Forces section of Massachusetts cops, out of Jewish gangsters in Ohio; biker gangs, Canadian Freemasons.

Leo:

"Assassin's Creed": Creation of Assassin's Creed concept, as alternative to parents pamphlets to place children in Mossad underground as "Moslems" or "Mussulman".

"Guantanamo Live Range Agent": Use of third degree interrogator's training from mother's Marine NCO doctor, "Glen", to hunt his killers inside INTERPOL's top ranks; Gwenn Pratt, John Washburne, Steven Charlebois, Brian Monaghan, Alexandra Gaetano, and John Kerry.

"Philips Freemasons of Boston": Stage point of removal of Ted Bundy catchem code, to take over Boston Triads for FBI and State Police, through Cyber Command aegis helix on Los Angeles Police Department server scans; return of Chinese to American policing, as FBI informants and cover agents, against rising tide of Taiwanese nationalism; unions and Russian-Jewish consortiums of film and media logic.

"Pinkville": The strike on the Hell's Angels as a capture turn of the Canadian Freemasons for operating criminal ventures in factories, sports leagues, and boarding schools, to turn children into slaves and writers and prison convicts; the French and British Freemasonic attempt to undo Bill Clinton's peace for labor, athletics, and prison inmates.

"Hideous Karl": Use of Jack Unterweger's serial killer profile, tying a necktie for a business meeting, taught by Scoutmasters in male and female scout troops, for any career or American act, to pen research work for Christopher Nolan, MGM, and FOX.

"The Steroids Scandal": Outing American-Japanese pharmaceuticals, and MI-6 doctors, for selling performance enhancing steroids, Suboxone, for decades, under different brands and claim of brands; the public lawsuit against Dr. Joshua Golden, of United Health Associates, by the Attorney General of Massachusetts, Maura Healey.

"The Kennedy Campaign": Legalized marijuana, certified safe and non-sprayed by tree surgeons elected by towns, free from media myth presented on Holland and British telecasts, or by journalist work by High Times magazines authors. Held under tax stamps, through the State Police.

"Spiral": The culmination of three decades of work, as an NSA, from kindergarten to the mid-thirties, in the takedowns of INTERPOL, On Leong Tong, the Unitarian Church, and MI-6. The culmination of years of experience, placed in two blog reformatories, "Lex Luthor and the Sudbury Boys", and "Spiral - The Batman Killer", the prior academic references, the latter actual career references. The shutdown of the "United Nations Security Council", by planting a forged work on American Marxism from 2003, from an economics business professor at UMass-Amherst, Gerald Friedman, through the actual United Nations; published independently overseas, by those dependent on the United Nations as an American CIA entity; falsely framed as MI-6. The same NSA trick, used on Stephen Glass, a Vatican affiliated lawyer out of the Italian government's Nortel structure.

[darkeraven22]

MGM Netflix Wednesday Season 1 Episode 4 Review

You’re Right Team Wednesday! You Can’t Have A Prom Scene Without A Carrie Reference! Spot On!So it looks like the second half of the Season shall invoke the rage of Wednesday. Spoilers. Remember Eugene? The guy Wednesday likes because he’s like her brother? He dies… I think. Since we need to make progress? Wednesday breaks into the morgue of the police station to investigate, with Thing of…

[cbonline]

Police band app

Explore the world of Akaristan with a variety of Eastern Bloc vehicles and complete special off-road missions. Arrest any offenders for later transport. Scanners appeared in 1970 or 71, six or maybe eight channels, a crystal needed for each. Contraband can be hidden almost everywhere. Some police band radios were tuneable but had the option of one crystal position, the best of both worlds. The slightest documents error is the basis for refusing entry. With each promotion, you'll receive a story quest that affects the game ending. You can always count on the help of your comrades!Ĭlimb the career ladder up to the rank of Chief Commissioner. Defend the post from the attacks of Blood Fist resistance group. Across the course of the wee Sting will be talking to Ken about music that means a lot to him and selecting tracks by Otis Redding, Procol Harum, Bob Marley, Gerry Rafferty, Pet Shop Boys, George Michael, Eurythmics, Human League, Peter Gabriel and Shaggy. Chris Cornell, whose band Soundgarden was one of the architects of grunge music, was found dead early today in his MGM Grand hotel room in downtown Detroit. Candidates who wish to secure these latest govt police jobs in Maharashtra will have to apply online according to their preference by checking out the details of their desired organization. Decide to allow, deny entry or arrest the newcomer.ĭevelop your outpost to function more efficiently, but remember that all upgrades will be more expensive to maintain. Sting will be Ken Bruce's guest on his radio feature 'Tracks of My Years' during w.c. 2019 The Maharashtra Police department is calling out for applications for posts of Constable / Shipai for the Maharashtra Police Mega Bharti. The video of the band, named Khaki Studio, is.

Follow the orders of commissioner Andreyev and learn all the main game mechanics.Ĭontraband Police is a border post commander simulator.Ĭheck the documents of arriving drivers, examine the technical state of their vehicles and detect contraband smuggling. But for nearly three years, an encrypted app used by criminals was covertly monitored by the FBI and Australias Federal Police (AFP) - leading to hundreds of arrests and tens of millions of. The band can be seen performing the instrumental version of the Kishore Kumar classic in the presence of a conductor, who is also a police officer. Contraband Police: Prologue is a 5-day training at the border station.

[celluloiddreamzzz]

CARY GRANT in a scene from director Alfred Hitchcock’s North By Northwest (1959)

From a set of old glossies I purchased at a secondhand bookstore. The caption on the rear reads:

“ARMED ESCORTS....Cary Grant is puzzled by police taking him to Chicago’s Midway Airport instead of the police station in this scene from MGM’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST.

Alfred Hitchcock strategically blends suspense, romance, drama and comedy for his first production for MGM, “NORTH BY NORTHWEST,” starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. Photographed in Eastman Color and VistaVision, film was produced and directed by Hitchcock from an original screenplay by Ernest Lehman.

1743-9″

[tcm]

The History of the Swimsuit By Constance Cherise

In 1907, Australian born competitive swimmer, women's advocate and world record breaker Annette Kellerman was arrested for indecent exposure on Revere Beach in Massachusetts. She wore a fitted bathing suit that exposed her arms, legs and neck. And although she was jailed, her audacious stance would prove to be a pivotal point in the evolution of freeing the female form. However, in order to understand why Kellerman's conduct was so scandalous, we have to review the past.

Hygiene in the 19th century was questionable to say the least and beach-going was not a typical activity. Known as “bathing costumes,” swimwear of the late 1800s were cumbersome, unflattering and uncomfortable. Victorian fashion, stocked with bustles, corsets and multiple layers of clothing, were phasing out as a result of increased intrigue to the newest social sporting activity, bicycling. In order to participate, women’s voluminous garments had to be stripped down to manageable practicality. Women, who now had the same access to this new freedom of transportation as men, wore bloomers, taking part in the sport and experiencing autonomy, which fed the blossoming suffragette movement.

Bathing costumes consisted of oversize dark-colored tops made of wool or flannel, bloomers or short pants, and stockings. Weights were sewn into the hemlines of the costume tops, to prevent floating once submerged. Bathing boots were generally worn as means of further concealment; however, they were also used pragmatically as protection against foreign debris underfoot.

The beginning of the 20th century ushered in the wasp-waist, pigeon-breasted “S” shape silhouette of the Edwardian era. As concern with hygienic health grew, the privileged class (compelled by the modern theory of saltwater’s healing capabilities) began to gravitate to the seaside. Naturally beach-going would work itself into the mainstream. The use of bathing machines became prevalent. Women would change into their bathing costumes inside of a horse-drawn (or at times manpower was used) wooden room that would transport them to the water, where a woman could then discretely bathe.

For the free-spirited revolutionist, Kellerman stitched hosiery onto her controversial one-piece bathing suit in order to arrive at a resolution with the court. This resulted in a number of women exchanging their ill-fitting costumes for increasingly comfortable bathing suits. Kellerman's story was depicted in the splashy MGM aqua-musical film, MILLION DOLLAR MERMAID (‘52) starring swimming mega-star, Esther Williams.

Before Kellerman's career was over, she starred on vaudeville, became an author and silent movie star, appearing in over eight films, and is credited as having the first nude scene in a feature-length film as seen in A DAUGHTER OF THE GODS ('16). Although she was the catalyst for measurable advancement, ironically, Kellerman was not an avid fan of the bikini. In a 1953 Boston Globe interview, she stated, “The Bikini bathing suit is a mistake. Only two women in a million can wear it. And it’s a very big mistake to try." As a parallel to the free-flowing jazz age of the 1920s and the flapper fashion of the era, more flesh was revealed as legs were shown to approximately the mid-thigh in the newer style bathing suits. Necklines lowered and arm holes became larger. Still, beachgoers had to contend with the “swimwear police” who measured skirt lengths in the interest of modesty.

The 1930s experienced The Great Depression. In an effort to offer a respite of escapism, Hollywood churned out opulent fantasy films, in which the clinging satin feminine line returned. The two main styles of swimsuits were the Dressmaker, a less fitted top with an A-line skirt, famously worn by Grace Kelly in HIGH SOCIETY (‘56), and the Maillot where the top half was a fitted swimsuit and the bottom half was basically boy shorts, as seen on Claudette Colbert in BLUEBEARD’S EIGHTH WIFE (‘38).

With the 1940s came WWII, The Good Neighbor policy, bolder prints and the birth of the pinup. It brought sweetheart necklines and ruched fabrics that were also reflective in swimwear. The two-piece bathing suit which showed the midriff (bottoms of which always covered the belly button) made its debut in the 1930s but came into prominence in the 1940s. The Andy Hardy series, with its bevy of young starlets, were ideal examples of ‘40s swimwear. Likely, the most famous bathing suit of the decade was undoubtedly Betty Grable’s iconic one-piece pin-up swimsuit. In 1946, French engineer Louis Réard would introduce the bikini. Wracked with scandal, Réard hired Micheline Bernardini, a burlesque performer and the only woman who would agree to model the shocking swimsuit in public.

The early 50s would see a variety of swimsuit styles including the Empire waist, princess and baby-doll swimsuits. The female curve was back with a vengeance as the ideal body style was that of the hourglass-shaped bombshell, reflected in fashion and prominently on screen with a series of the implausibly spectacular bacchanalia of Berkeley's aqua-musicals (in Technicolor no less), starring Esther Williams. The bikini continued to gain popularity through the 1960s (how could it not)? In America, production companies took full advantage of the pop song “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie” by Brian Hyland, which upon its release in 1960 catapulted the sale of the bathing suit. In response, studios pumped out an onslaught of California teen beach party films. Annette Funicello, became the epitome of the 60s bikini teen idol, starring alongside Frankie Avalon in such films as BEACH BLANKET BINGO (‘65), BEACH PARTY (‘63) and BIKINI BEACH (‘64).

Beginning with Bohemia and ending with disco, the ‘70s saw an array of fashion styles, and the bathing suit was no exception. The Pill came into prominence and along with it, the new wave of soul surrendering euphoric dance music: disco. An authentic representation of ‘70s swimwear appeared in the film JAWS (‘75), as well as a myriad of television shows, including Fantasy Island, starring the sensual and suave classic film actor Ricardo Montalbán. Halters, tie fronts, keyhole cut-outs, backless, and of course Farah Fawcett's deep v-cut one-piece swimwear style of the 1970s seemed endless. Bright, brighter and the brightest colors dominated the excessive “Me Generation” of the 1980s aesthetic. A mashup of style, it wouldn't take too much effort for a keen eye to trace each of the prior decade’s influences. Thongs, which were introduced by Brazil during the ‘70s, and high cut, V-hips monopolized the decade, especially reflective in the music videos of the new, iconic cable television station MTV.

During the ‘90s, the high-cut waist and bikinis of the ‘80s remained, and glamorous designer swimsuits graced the runway. Tankinis came back into fashion as a nod to the ‘40s. Still, the red one-piece bathing suit, popularized by Pamela Anderson of the ‘90s television show Baywatch captured the decade. The 2000s (and beyond) brought mix-and-match suits and offered multiple choices of varying options including the Burkini. The rise of positive body image injected a necessary confidence boost to women who did not fit the stereotypical, force-fed, beauty standard.

[introvertguide]

North by Northwest (1959); AFI #55

The next film for review was the Hitchcock classic North by Northwest (1959). This movie has possibly the most well known surprise attack scene in American cinema involving a crop duster. I know, it sounds great. The film was moderately successful at the box office and marked the one and only time that Alfred Hitchcock worked with MGM. It was also only one of two VistaVision films made at the studio. Hitchcock was not a man to let studios mess with his work, so he famously refused to cut 15 minutes out of the movie for time and instead cut a total of 5 seconds worth of material. Before I go into any more detail, I feel like this is bordering quickly on spoilers so let me get the warning and the synopsis out of the way:

SPOILER ALERT!!!! THIS IS A GREAT MOVIE THAT I KNOW VERY WELL AND FEEL LIKE IT SHOULD BE SEEN BEFORE IT IS DISCUSSED!!! I AM GOING TO GO OVER THE FILM IN GREAT DETAIL SO CHECK IT OUT BEFORE READING ANY FURTHER!!!

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The whole story begins with a case of mistaken identity. Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) is an advertising executive who is going to lunch to have a business meeting. He sits down and then remembers he needs to phone his mother so he summons the waiter to ask about a phone. Apparently the waiter had just received a call for a spy named George Kaplan and some thugs are waiting for a signal that will identify the man. Thornhill’s signal is mistaken for the spy’s and the thugs move in and take away the ad exec at gunpoint. They go to the home of U.N. Diplomat Lester Townsend and Thornhill is interrogated by a spy named Philip Vandamm (James Mason) and his right hand man Leonard (Martin Landau). Thornhill tries to say he is innocent, but Vandamm and the thugs do not believe him and stage his death by drunken car accident. Thornhill survives and escapes by car, but he is still drunk and is subsequently stopped and arrested by the Glen Cove police for drunk driving.  

Thornhill sleeps off his intoxication at the station and calls his mother to get in contact with their lawyer. The next day, Thornhill tells the local court everything that he remembers happening, but nobody believes him. He even takes them back to the house and a woman claiming to be Townsend’s wife acts like Thornhill was there for a party and left drunk. Thornhill has to pay the fine (a whole $2), but he is still curious.

Thornhill and his mother go back to the restaurant where he was kidnapped and finagle their way up into the attached hotel to find the real spy, George Kaplan. It turns out that nobody has ever seen this man in person so everybody just assumes that Thornhill is Kaplan since he showed up at the room. The thugs have returned and try to recapture Thornhill still thinking he is Kaplan, but Thornhill is able to escape. He goes and visits the UN to talk to Townsend in an effort to shine a light on the situation, but Townsend is confused and says that his wife died many years ago. Suddenly, a knife is thrown into the back of Townsend and all the witnesses around think that Thornhill did it as there is nobody else to blame. Thornhill again escapes and is now running away and trying to find Kaplan in hopes of clearing his name.

I very quick scene of an American intelligence agency meeting reveals that Kaplan never existed and that this was a made up spy to keep Vandamm occupied while they figure out his plans. It is unfortunate for Thornhill, but all agree that he will have to become Kaplan and more than likely die by the hands of Vandamm and his men. Thornhill is unaware of this meeting and continues to run around looking for this non-existent spy.

Thornhill is able to sneak on a train to go to Chicago since he believes that Kaplan is at a hotel there. He runs into a lovely blonde named Eve Kendall (Eva Marie Saint) who seems aggressively interested in him and wants to help him hide out. She knows that he is the man who is being blamed for the murder of the UN diplomat and she seems to want to sleep with him (like a groupie)? She is very straight forward and it turns out that this is because she is working for Vandamm, who is also on the train.

In the morning, Eve helps Thornhill arrange a meeting with the non-existent Kaplan at an isolated rural bus stop outside of the Chicago. Thornhill gets there and finds...nothing? A guy shows up but he is just waiting for the next bus. The only thing around is a biplane crop duster that seems to be dusting empty fields. It dramatically turns and swoops down at Thornhill firing a backloaded machine gun. Thornhill is able to hide in the fields and then manages to get under a passing oil truck, which the biplane smashes into and eventually explodes. 

Thornhill steals a truck and reaches Kaplan's hotel in Chicago to discover that Kaplan had already checked out and left before the time when Eve claimed she talked to him on the phone. Thornhill goes to her room and confronts her and she plays naïve.  She tries to run away while he is changing clothes, but he quickly follows her down to an auction where he finds her with Vandamm. He insults her coldly and then makes his escape from Vandamm by turning himself in, but the police strangely won’t take him to the station and instead leave him in the care of a man simply called The Professor (Lee Carroll). 

The professor finally reveals to Thornhill that Kaplan doesn’t exist and that Eve is actually a government agent working for the U.S. It is also explained that Vandamm has some sort of evidence/information that he is trying to take out of the country and will be leaving by plane from his South Dakota home that is in the woods right next to Mount Rushmore. The Professor leaves Thornhill to play the role of Kaplan and negotiates for Eve at the Mount Rushmore visitor center and she seemingly shoots him to look good in front of Vandamm. Luckily the gun is loaded with blanks (remember this gun, it will come back).

Afterwards, the Professor arranges for Thornhill and Eve to meet and Thornhill learns that she must depart with Vandamm and Leonard on a plane. When Thornhill tries to dissuade her from going, he is knocked unconscious by another one of The Professor’s men and locked in a hospital room. Thornhill is able to escape (he gets out of everything) custody and goes to Vandamm's house to rescue Eve from leaving.

At the house, Thornhill sneaks around and overhears that the sculpture that Vandamm bought at the auction holds some kind of microfilm. Leonard also reveals to Vandamm that the gun was a blank and it is decided that Eve will be killed on the plane. Thornhill must keep Eve from getting on the plane so he gives her a note revealing the plot. She is being lead out to the plane and she makes a break for it, meets Thornhill, and they climb out on to Mount Rushmore to escape. The Professor rushes in with his men and arrests Vandamm while also shooting Leonard. 

Unfortunately, Eve has slipped climbing around on the president faces and Thornhill is attempting to pull her back to safety when...he is now suddenly pulling her onto a foldout train bed and he is calling her Mrs. Thornhill. The train enters a tunnel and the movie ends.

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This was the fourth and lowest rated Hitchcock film on the AFI top 100, but I opine that it is the most fun. The constant escapes and the almost relatable situation of a businessman getting wrapped up in something of which he wanted no part of makes this a very easy watch. There really are no slow points in this film and the action is punctuated by good comedy. Drunken Thornhill trying to explain what happened and then desperately bidding at an auction to bide time for an escape his hilarious. My favorite line in the film is when Thornhill and The Professor are waiting at the Mount Rushmore visitor center and Thornhill looks through a viewing scope and says “I don’t like the way that Teddy Roosevelt is looking at me.” That is awesome. 

As much as Alfred Hitchcock was the Master of Suspense and the King of Dramatic Climax...his endings aren’t generally very good. He did a terrific job wrapping up Rear Window (1954), making sure all storylines were finished, but he really didn’t end North by Northwest (1959), Vertigo (1958), or The Birds (1963). The movie Psycho (1960) did have an ending, but it was an exposition dump that really was the low part of the film. I love all of these films and the suspenseful build-ups to the dramatic climaxes are extraordinary and put them in a class of their own, but I would not call Hitchcock one to demand a satisfying resolution. 

I know that I have done it for every one of the Hitchcock movies on the AFI list, but I again want to give a shout to Saul Bass for the opening credits and Bernard Hermann for the score. The intro to a Hitchcock film puts you in the mood for a good story and the score keeps you interested all the way to the end. 

There were some questions from my parents as well as from a couple of viewers about the biplane scene. How was it that the plane passed by and then machine gun fire followed? Well, the plane was a N3N Canary, also known as the “Yellow Peril,” and was a tandem seat training biplane that had an open cockpit. This means that there had to be a a guy in the back with a gun shooting backwards. These were generally converted for agricultural use at the end of WW2. The plane that blew up was a different plane (a Stearman Boeing Model 75 trainer) that was also used as an agricultural duster. Empire magazine rated this scene as the greatest movie moment of all time. 

Now that the group has been watching so many movies from Old Hollywood, it became apparent to me how extraordinarily dirty the language was on the train between Roger and Eve. I remember reviewing this film in a college film course and the professor commenting over the scene. She mentioned that this was the only scene of the film that had any cuts and they were made by Hitchcock himself. I also remember Eva Marie Saint saying she was 26 and the professor said, “Ha! Plus 10!” This was a mid 20s female character (played by an actress in her 30s) trying to actively bed a character in his mid 40s (played by an actor in his 50s) who she has just met and spent a total of 5 minutes with. It was all sorts of awkward, and it was great.

So. Should this move be on the AFI top 100? Yes. Probably higher in rank. I was just thinking of another Cary Grant film that is higher on the list, The Philadelphia Story (1940), and how this film is so much more fun. I think that there are other Hitchcock films like Rebecca (1940) and The Birds (1963) that could be on this list, but I guess 4 films from a director that isn’t American is a good representation. North by Northwest is definitely a deserving example. Would I recommend it? Yes. Heck, you can borrow my copy as long as you bring it back. I have seen the film probably two dozen times in the last 20 years and I would be happy to see it again if it means somebody can experience it for the first time. I highly recommend checking it out for yourself.

[aion-rsa]

The United States vs. Billie Holiday: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics Was Formed to Kill Jazz

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This article contains The United States vs. Billie Holiday spoilers. 

Federal drug enforcement was created for the express purpose of persecuting Billie Holiday. Director Lee Daniels’ The United States vs. Billie Holiday focuses a cinematic microscope on the events, but a much larger picture is visible just outside the lens. Holiday’s best friend and one-time manager Maely Dufty told mourners at the funeral that Billie was murdered by a conspiracy orchestrated by the narcotics police, according to Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs by Johann Hari. The book also said Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was a particularly virulent racist who hounded “Lady Day” throughout the 1940s and drove her to her death in the 1950s.

This is corroborated in Billie, a 2020 BBC documentary directed by James Erskine, and Alexander Cockburn’s book Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press, which also claims Anslinger hated jazz music, which he believed brought the white race down to the level of African descendants through the corrupting influence of jungle rhythms. He also believed marijuana was the devil’s weed and transformed the post-Prohibition fight against alcohol into a war on drugs. The first line of battle was against the musicians who partook.

“Marijuana is taken by… musicians,” Anslinger testified to Congress prior to the vote on the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. “And I’m not speaking about good musicians, but the jazz type.” The LaGuardia Committee, appointed in 1939 by one of the Act’s strongest opponents, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, ultimately refuted every point made in the effective drug czar’s testimony. Based on the findings, “the Treasury Department told Anslinger he was wasting his time,” according to Chasing the Scream. The opportunistic department head “scaled down his focus until it settled like a laser on one single target.”

Federal authorization of selective enforcement should come as no surprise. Just this month, HBO Max released Judas and the Black Messiah about how the FBI and local law enforcement targeted the Black Panthers and put a bullet in the back of the head of Fred Hampton after he was apparently drugged by the informant. In MLK/FBI (2020), director Sam Pollard used newly declassified files to fill in the gaps on the story of the U.S. government’s surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King, Jr. Days ago, The Washington Post reported the daughters of assassinated civil rights leader Malcolm X requested his murder investigation be reopened in light of a deathbed letter from officer Raymond A. Wood, alleging New York police and the FBI conspired in his killing.

During the closing credits of The United States vs. Billie Holiday we read that Holiday, played passionately by Andra Day in the film, was similarly arrested on her deathbed. She was in the hospital suffering from cirrhosis of the liver when she was cuffed to her bed. They don’t mention police had been stationed outside her door barring family, fans, and well-wishers from offering the singer comfort as she lay dying. They also don’t mention that police removed gifts people brought to the room, as well as flowers, radio, record player, chocolates, and any magazines. When she died at age 44, it was found that Holiday had 15 $50 bills strapped to her leg, the remainder of her money after years of top selling records. Billie intended to give it to the nurses to thank them for looking after her.

As The United States vs. Billie Holiday points out, the feds had been watching Holiday since club owner Barney Josephson encouraged her to sing “Strange Fruit” at the integrated Cafe Society in Greenwich Village in 1939. Waiters would stop all service during the performance of the song. The room would be dark, and it would never be followed by an encore.

The lyric came from a three-stanza poem, “Bitter Fruit,” about a lynching. It was written by Lewis Allan, the pseudonym of New York schoolteacher and songwriter named Abel Meeropol, a costumer at the club. Meeropol set the words to music, and the song was first performed by singer Laura Duncan at Madison Square Garden.

Holiday and her accompanist Sonny White adapted Allan’s melody and chord structure, and released the song on Milt Gabler’s independent label Commodore Records in 1939. The legendary John Hammond, who discovered Holiday in 1933 while she was singing in a Harlem nightclub called Monette’s, refused to release it on Columbia Records, where Billie was signed. 

The song “marked a watershed,” according to David Margolick’s 2000 book Strange Fruit: Billie Holiday, Cafe Society, and an Early Cry for Civil Rights. Influential jazz writer Leonard Feather called the song “the first significant protest in words and music, the first significant cry against racism.”

Holiday experienced the brutally enforced racial segregation of the Jim Crow laws during her trips south with her bands, according to Billie Holiday, the 1990 book by Bud Kliment. She was also demeaned at the Lincoln Hotel in New York City in October 1938 when management demanded she walk through the kitchen and use the service elevator to get on the stage. Holiday also caught flak for being considered too light skinned to sing with one band, and was on at least one occasion forced to wear special makeup to darken her complexion.

Holiday was 18 years old when she recorded her first commercial session with Benny Goodman’s group at Columbia Records, but knew firsthand that an integrated band would be more threatening than an all-Black group. According to most biographies, Holiday began using hard drugs in the early ’40s under the influence of her first husband, Jimmy Monroe, brother of the owner of Monroe’s Uptown House in Harlem.

Anslinger, the first commissioner for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, was an extreme racist, even by the standards of the time, according to Chasing the Scream. He claimed narcotics made black people forget their place in the fabric of American society, and jazz musicians created “Satanic” music under pot’s influence.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday doesn’t shy away from the drug czar’s blatant racism, but Garrett Hedlund’s Harry J. Anslinger doesn’t capture the full depths of the disgust the man felt and put into practice through his selective enforcement. Hedlund is able to mouth some of the epithets his character threw at ethnic targets, but most of the actual quotes on record are so offensive there is no need to subject any audience to them today. The film barely even mentions the strange and forbidden fruit imbibed in slow-burning paper that Anslinger obsessed over almost as much as Holiday’s song.

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Commissioner Anslinger came to power during the “Reefer Madness” era, and shaped much of the anti-marijuana paranoia of the period, according to Alexander Cockburn’s Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs, and the Press. His first major campaign was to criminalize hemp, rebranding it as “marijuana” in an attempt “to associate it with Mexican laborers.” He claimed the drug “can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack.”

Anslinger promoted racist fictions and singled out groups he personally disliked as special targets. He said the lives of the jazzmen “reek of filth,” and the genre itself was proof that marijuana drives people insane. On drug raids, he advised his agents to “shoot first.” Anslinger persecuted many black musicians, including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie and Duke Ellington. When Louis Armstrong was arrested for possession, Anslinger orchestrated a nationwide media smear campaign.

The Federal Bureau of Narcotics’ “race panic” tactics had a double standard. Anslinger only had a “friendly chat” with Judy Garland over her heroin addiction, suggesting she take longer vacations between films. He wrote to MGM, reporting he observed no evidence of a drug problem.

Anslinger ordered Holiday to cease performing “Strange Fruit” almost immediately after word got out about the performances. When she refused, he sent agent Jimmy Fletcher to frame the singer.  Anslinger hated hiring Black agents, according to both Whiteout and Chasing the Scream, but white officers stood out on these investigations. He did insist no Black man in his Bureau could ever be a boss to white men, and pigeonholed officers like Fletcher to street agents.

Donald Clark and Julia Blackburn studied the only remaining interview with Jimmy Fletcher for their biography Billie Holiday: Wishing on The Moon. That interview has since been lost by the archives handling it. According to their book when Fletcher first saw Billie at the raid on her brother-in-law’s Philadelphia apartment in May 1947, “She was drinking enough booze to stun a horse and hoovering up vast quantities of cocaine.”

Fletcher’s partner sent for a policewoman to conduct a body search. “You don’t have to do that. I’ll strip,” Billie said before stripping and marking her territory in a provocative show of non-violent defiance by urinating on the floor (another action Daniels’ movie glosses over). Holiday was arrested and put on trial for possession of narcotics.

According to Hettie Jones’ book Big Star Fallin’ Mama: Five Women in Black Music, Holiday “Signed away her right to a lawyer and no one advised her to do otherwise.” She thought she would be sent to a hospital to kick the drugs and get well. “It was called ‘The United States of America versus Billie Holiday,’” she recalled in Lady Sings the Blues, the 1956 memoir she co-wrote with William Dufty, “and that’s just the way it felt.” Holiday was sentenced to a year and a day in a West Virginia prison. When her autobiography was published, Holiday tracked Fletcher down and sent him a signed copy.

When Holiday was released in 1948, the federal government refused to renew her cabaret performer’s license, which was mandatory for performing in any club serving alcohol. Under Anslinger’s recommended edict, Holiday was restricted “on the grounds that listening to her might harm the morals of the public,” according to the book Lady Sings the Blues.

The jazz culture had its own code. Musicians not only wouldn’t rat out other musicians, they would chip in to bail out any player who got popped. When it appeared Fletcher, who shadowed Holiday for years, became protective of Holiday, Anslinger got Holiday’s abusive husband and manager Louis McKay to snitch.

Two years after Holiday’s first conviction, Anslinger recruited Colonel George White, a former San Francisco journalist who applied to join the Federal Bureau of Narcotics. The personality test given to all applicants determined White was a sadist, and he quickly rose through the bureau’s ranks. He gained bureau acclaim as the first and only white man to infiltrate a Chinese drug gang.

White had a history of planting drugs on women and abused his powers in many ways. According to Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, after White retired from the Bureau, he bragged, “Where else [but in the Bureau of Narcotics] could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the All-Highest?” He “may well have been high when he busted Billie for getting high,” according to Chasing the Scream.

White arrested Holiday, without a warrant, at the Mark Twain Hotel in San Francisco in 1949. Billie insisted she had been clean for over a year, and said the dope was planted in her room by White. Bureau agents said they found her works in the room and the stash in a wastepaper basket next to a side room. They never entered the kit into evidence. According to Ken Vail’s book Lady Day’s Diary, Holiday immediately offered to go into a clinic, saying they could monitor her for withdrawal symptoms and that would prove she was being framed. Holiday checked herself into the clinic, paying $1,000 for the stay and she “didn’t so much as shiver.”  She was not convicted by jury at trial.

Afterward White attended one of Holiday’s shows at the Café Society Uptown and requested his favorite songs. After the show was over, the federal cop told Billie’s manager “I did not think much of Ms. Holiday’s performance.”

In 1959, Billie collapsed while at the apartment of a young musician named Frankie Freedom. After waiting on a stretcher for an hour and a half, Manhattan’s Knickerbocker Hospital turned her away, saying she was a drug addict. Recognized by one of the ambulance drivers, Holiday was admitted in a public ward of New York City’s Metropolitan Hospital. She lit a cigarette as soon as they took her off oxygen.

In spite of being told her liver was failing and cancerous, and her heart and lungs were compromised, Holiday did not want to stay at the hospital. “They’re going to kill me. They’re going to kill me in there. Don’t let them,” she told Maely Dufty.

Billie went into heroin withdrawal, alone. When Holiday responded to methadone treatment, Anslinger’s men prevented hospital staff from administering any further methadone, even though it had been officially prescribed by her doctor. Drug cops claimed to find a tinfoil envelope containing under an eighth of an ounce of heroin. It was found hanging on a nail on the wall, six feet from Billie’s bed where the frail and restrained artist could not have reached it.

The cops handcuffed her to the bed, stationed two policemen at the door and told Holiday they’d take her to prison if she didn’t drop dime on her dealer. When Maely Dufty informed the police it was against the law to arrest a patient in critical care, the cops had Holiday taken off the list.

Outside the hospital, protesters gathered on the streets holding up signs reading “Let Lady Live.” The demonstrations were led by the Rev. Eugene Callender. The Harlem pastor, who built a clinic for heroin addicts in his church, requested the singer be allowed to be treated there.

Holiday didn’t blame the cops. She said the drug war forced police to treat people like criminals when they were actually ill.

“Imagine if the government chased sick people with diabetes, put a tax on insulin and drove it into the black market, told doctors they couldn’t treat them, then sent them to jail,” she wrote in Lady Sings the Blues. “If we did that, everyone would know we were crazy. Yet we do practically the same thing every day in the week to sick people hooked on drugs.”

Holiday’s social commentary didn’t end with “Strange Fruit.” She wrote and sang about racial equality in the song “God Bless the Child,” her voice captured the pains of domestic violence. Most of Holiday’s contemporaries were too scared of being hassled by the feds to perform “Strange Fruit.” Billie Holiday refused to stop. She was killed for it. But never silenced.

The United States vs. Billie Holiday is streaming on Hulu now.

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The post The United States vs. Billie Holiday: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics Was Formed to Kill Jazz appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[townpostin]

Fire Destroys Eight Shops Near Dimna Chowk Jamshedpur

Late-night blaze causes significant losses; residents suspect foul play. Local residents promptly alerted authorities as fire engulfed shops. JAMSHEDPUR – Late on Sunday night, a fire unexpectedly started in small shops resembling huts near Dimna Chowk, close to the MGM police station. The fire rapidly spread to the neighboring shops. The local residents quickly notified the fire department,…

[oscopelabs]

The Cat Who Won’t Cop Out: Shaft as the ‘70s Black Superhero by Jason Bailey

(The following essay is excerpt from Jason’s new book, It’s Okay With Me: Hollywood, the 1970s, and the Return of the Private Eye.)

The first thing John Shaft (Richard Roundtree) does in Gordon Parks’ Shaft, after emerging from a Times Square subway station below the grindhouse movie theaters that would eventually and enthusiastically screen his adventures, is walk into New York City traffic (Shaft can’t be stopped, even by Eighth Avenue) and flip off the driver who gets too close to him. Meet your new action hero, Middle America; here is his message to you.

Shaft came early in the so-called “blaxpoitation” movement—a period, running roughly from 1970 to 1975, that saw an explosion of films made for, about, and often by African-Americans. This was an underserved audience; with the exception of independent “race picture” makers like Oscar Micheaux and Spencer Williams, their stories simply weren’t told onscreen, and they certainly weren’t told by mainstream studio films, which consigned black performers to subservient roles (or worse). The winds started to shift in the 1960s, when Sidney Poitier became a bankable name and Oscar-winning star, but he was the exception to the rule. It wasn’t until football star-turned-actor Jim Brown leveraged his supporting turn in the 1967 smash The Dirty Dozen into bona fide action hero status that this untapped swath of moviegoers, hungry for entertainment and representation, began to make itself known.

1970 saw the release of two very big (and very different) hits: Ossie Davis’ high-spirited crime comedy Cotton Comes to Harlem, and Melvin Van Peebles’ provocative, X-rated (“by an all-white jury!” boasted the ads) Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. Peebles’ film was, essentially, the black Easy Rider, a rough-edged road movie with a decidedly European sensibility that grossed something like $15 million on a $150K budget, a return on investment so huge, the (flailing) studios couldn’t help but take notice.

Shaft was next down the chute. Adapted by Ernest Tidyman—who also wrote that year’s Best Picture winner The French Connection—from his 1970 novel, the film was helmed by Gordon Parks, the influential photographer who’d made his directorial debut in 1969 with the autobiographical The Learning Tree. MGM gave him a modest $1 million budget; model-turned-actor Roundtree was paid a mere $13,500 to play the title role. (Isaac Hayes was among the actors who auditioned, and though Parks passed on his acting, he hired Hayes to compose and perform the picture’s iconic funk score.)

“Shaft essentially was a standard white detective tale enlivened by a black sensibility,” wrote Donald Bogle, in his essential Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, & Bucks. “As Roundtree’s John Shaft—mellow but assertive and unintimidated by whites—bopped through those hot mean streets dressed in his cool leather, he looked to black audiences like a brother they had all seen many times but never on screen.” He’s right on both scores. Shaft, who is smirkingly called a “black Spade detective,” is embroiled in a commonplace private eye narrative, engaged by a lying client (uptown gangster Bumpy Jonas, smoothly played by Moses Gunn) to find a missing girl—in this case, the client’s daughter. Shaft is a snappy dresser and sharp shooter; he uses the neighborhood bar as his second office.

But we’ve never seen a private eye who looks like this. Shaft leaves the shirts and ties to the cops and gangsters; he wears turtlenecks with his suits, along with that amazing leather coat. In the documentary Baadasssss Cinema, blaxploitation acolyte Quentin Tarantino is critical of the lack of action in Shaft’s opening credit sequence (“I’m semi-frustrated that [the theme] wasn’t utilized better,” he explains. “If I had the theme to Shaft to open up my movie, I’d open my damn movie”), but he’s underestimating the visual jolt of merely showing a man like Shaft strutting the streets of New York, and gazing upon him as he stakes his claim.

There’s something undeniably sensual about that gaze. Shaft was among the first major motion pictures to feature a black man of sexual potency—with the phallic overtones embedded right in his surname, and thus in the film’s title. He gets a full-on sex scene with his steady lady early in the film; later on, he shares a steamy shower with a white pick-up, a mere four years after the carefully sexless interracial romance of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

But aside from that scene—and the iconographically loaded image, during the climax, of black militants turning fire hoses on white people—Shaft’s racial politics are surprisingly middle-of-the-road. Shaft may kid Lt. Vic Androzzi (Charles Cioffi) with lines like “It warms my black heart to see you so concerned for us minority folks,” but he humors the white cop, and mostly cooperates with him. The script is careful to disassociate its fictional black-power revolutionary group from real ones like the Black Panthers and the Young Lords, but it also shows them to be ineffectual, and Shaft is ultimately interested in their manpower, not their politics.

In other words, it’s a film that straddles its lines carefully, just as Shaft must code-switch between worlds: black and white, cop and crook, uptown and downtown (his black gangster client runs Harlem, but Shaft’s office is in midtown and he lives in the Village). Yet when it’s clutch time, Shaft is a full-on badass. In his first fight scene, the unarmed detective takes out two gun-wielding tough guys; in the climax, he swings in through a window like goddamn Batman, the black superhero rescuing the damsel in distress (stolen, not incidentally, by the white man).

Such elements became cornerstones of the blaxpoitation action template. Nelson George, who calls the film “a typical detective flick in blackface,” runs them down in his book Blackface: “black nationalists depicted as inept, if well meaning, supporting characters; young women, of all colors, are sexual pawns or playthings; white and black mobsters are in constant collaboration and conflict.” To that we can add a dash of respectability politics (Bumpy’s daughter is worth saving because she’s a “good girl” who’s “going to college”), righteous condemnation of drug dealing, and black characters working within the system while maintaining (though not without a struggle) their “blackness.”

Audiences ate it up. “Take a formula private-eye plot, update it with all-black environment, and lace with contemporary standards of on-and off-screen violence, and the result is Shaft,” opined Variety, predicting that “Strong B.O. [box office] prospects loom in urban black situations, elsewhere good." That was an understatement. Shaft’s $12 million gross helped save MGM, confirmed the audience that Cotton and Sweet Sweetback suggested, and prompted a flurry of imitators, including the following year’s quickie sequel Shaft’s Big Score!

Parks, Tidyman, and Roundtree all returned for the sequel—the latter with a healthy salary bump, to $50,000—though Isaac Hayes only contributed a single new song, turning over composer duties to Parks. Inexplicably, Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft,” which had won an Oscar in the intervening year, is nowhere to be heard, jettisoned in favor of a sequel song by O.C. Smith (and sequels, per usual, aren’t equal), a decision roughly akin to discarding the Bond theme after Dr. No.

It’s not the only questionable call. Instead of Lt. Vic, Shaft’s police foil is a smug black sell-out cop, whom Shaft calls a “black honky with big flat feet” and who is seen telling a black suspect, “Fuck your rights, go sue the city.” Shaft doesn’t really investigate a mystery this time around—the villain is revealed before our hero is, and the script stays that course—and no one actually hires him either. The script merely parachutes him into the middle of another war between Harlem gangs and the Italian mob. Parks was working with a larger budget, but you don’t see it until the third act’s tight car chase, followed by an ace boat/chopper sequence. The filmmakers clearly put their energies into a super-slick Hollywood ending—and it looks great. But they ended up sanding down what made the first film interesting; much of its uniqueness is in its rough edges.

The same goes for Shaft in Africa, which appeared the following year and took that character to the logical conclusion of his savior-warrior construct. Shaft is hired this time to penetrate a modern African slavery ring, and though he is initially resistant to the mission—he says the case is “out of my turf,” since “I don’t know any Africans, brother”—he ends up training and studying to go undercover as a native. Gordon Parks demurred from participating in this third and final installment, and white director John Guillermin (who would next direct The Towering Inferno and the 1976 King Kong remake) is extra careful with his camera placement during Shaft’s nude “stick fight,” but the sexual implications aren’t exactly subtle, and that’s before our hero smirks, “Guy named Shaft ain’t gonna be bad with a stick.” (Finally, someone said it.)

Africa has the broadest and perhaps clumsiest sexual messaging of the trilogy (and that’s putting aside its weird female genital mutilation subplot—don’t ask). Late in the film, our hero is seduced by the arch-villain’s insatiable white mistress, who initially queries, “How long is your phallus, Mr. Shaft,” and later tells him, “You’re the first man who’s ever made love to me the way a man should.” Shaft is, indeed, the private dick, detective as both superhero and super-stud. That scene falls during Shaft and his fellow laborers’ crossing from Africa to Paris, a water journey that’s uncomfortably crowded and dehumanizing, explicitly echoing the Middle Passage—and thus positing Shaft as a racial avenger. He ends up leading what amounts to a slave revolt, an unexpected Shaft-as-Nat-Turner twist, full-on retroactive wish fulfillment.

But wish fulfillment was ultimately what blaxploitation in general, and these films in particular, were all about. Characters like Shaft and Trouble Man’s “Mr. T” don’t do a helluva lot of detecting, per se; they’re more like urban independent cops, allowing their creators to make what amounted to police movies for audiences who didn’t like and didn’t trust police. (When a complicated film like Across 110th Street dealt with those complexities, neither black nor white audiences showed up.)

But the further they got from their mean streets, the less they reflected their day-to-day reality. Reflecting on the power of Shaft in his review of its sequel, the New York Times’ Roger Greenspun noted, “After every sort of big-town white detective from Marlowe to Madigan had obviously lost the freedom of the city, John Shaft—cool, insolent, clever—seemed a fair choice to take their place. For the detective is nothing if not indigenous; the best hero we have to offer, once we know the misery around us and our own despair.” However, “the new Shaft follows a new and glossier and tidier image, an image that is much more James Bond than Bogart.” The Shaft sequels pivoted from the urban gangster bad guys of the first film to smugly erudite super-villains; Big Score’s plays a clarinet, for God’s sake. By the time he hits Africa, Shaft has to explicitly insist that he’s not James Bond, but it’s an easy conclusion to jump to—the line comes during a gadget briefing sequence, from his own junior varsity Q.

Yet the inclination towards such a character, for filmmakers and audiences, is understandable. In his book More Than Night, James Naremore attributes Parks and Van Peebles’ “black supermen” as a response to “decades of emasculated or nearly invisible black people on the screen,” but there was more at play here than that. By the early 1970s, black heroes were at a premium; Martin was dead and so was Malcolm, Fred Hampton and George Jackson, too, and the black revolutionary movement was scarcely in better shape than in its portrayals in films like Shaft. Eldridge Cleaver and Huey P. Newton’s in-fighting split the Panthers in 1971, and by early ’72, Newton was shutting down chapters—the ones that hadn’t been raided by police. Cleaver was in Algerian exile, and Bobby Seale was in jail. The Panthers had been undone by COINTELPRO, heroin, and ego. “We had the revolution,” Richard Pryor joked in 1976. “Remember the revolution, brother? We lost!”

But on screen, they could win. If he was enough of an outsider—his own boss, beholden to no one—the black man could be a hero. He could mouth off to cops, he could protect the community, he could be irresistible to women. He could come out on top, and truth and justice could prevail; he could do all of the things that white private detectives did back in the 1940s, and didn’t do anymore. When those white counterparts first appeared in the ‘40s, they served a similar function for an audience coming out of a Great Depression, fighting a world war, and uncertain about their future. That audience needed tough, straightforward heroes with an unerring moral compass; so did this one.

The black private eyes didn’t have the luxury, in this tense and uncertain time, of flirting with the existentialism of Hickey and Boggs or The Long Goodbye’s Marlowe or Night Moves’ Harry Moseby. Isaac Hayes may have called Shaft “a complicated man,” but there was nothing complicated about him, or any of his brethren. What you saw was what you got. “He was everything we’d always wanted to be,” said Samuel L. Jackson, who would take over the role of Shaft in a 2000 remake. “He was cool, he talked tough, he looked great, and he was fearless. He was a hero.”

In the ‘70s, black audiences looked at their movie detectives and saw what they wanted to be. White audiences looked at theirs, and saw what they were.

[net4news]

Newborn girl, mother die at MGM hosp; probe ordered | Ranchi News - Net4News

Jamshedpur: A newborn girl and her mother died in quick succession at the government-run MGMMCH here, prompting the family members to charge the hospital staff with negligence and fiddling with their phones while ignoring the pleas for help. The hospital has ordered an inquiry into the incident and assured to punish those found guilty. According to relatives of Guddi Mukhi, who was in her early 30s died half an hour after giving birth, the deceased was brought to the hospital on Sunday night after she developed labour pain. After she was admitted to the gynaecology ward of the hospital, her pain intensified and started bleeding profusely. Guddi’s sister Meera Mukhi said, “Throughout Sunday night, she screamed for help. When I rushed to the doctor and the sister on duty, they were fiddling with their phones and did not respond to my pleas on several occasions. I think CCTVs are installed in the ward and my statement can be verified after watching the footage.” Meera further said both the doctor and the nurse scolded her for rushing to them every now and then. “Instead of attending to the patient, they shouted at me for disturbing them saying my sister’s situation is not serious. Both of them told me to first arrange for blood and come to them. Early in the morning, my sister gave birth to a baby girl and she died within minutes of her birth.” Vimal Mukhi, the husband of the deceased, Meera and other family members, who hail from Harijan Basti of Bhalubasa area under Sitaramdera police station, demanded action against the doctor and the nurse. MGMMCH deputy superintendent Nakul Choudhary said the allegations are serious and an investigation has been ordered into the incident. “We will question not only the complainant, the doctor and the nurse but also the ward boy and patients of the surrounding beds to find out the developments of the night. If the doctor and the nurse are found guilty, action will be taken against them,” Choudhary said. A senior doctor at the gynaecology ward said on condition of anonymity that the woman died of excess bleeding but it is a matter of investigation. Notably, additional chief secretary (health) Arun Kumar Singh had expressed dissatisfaction with the hospital management for lack of work culture during his maiden visit to the hospital on July 12. Source link Read the full article

[townpostin]

Car Hits School Children in Jamshedpur, Two Seriously Injured

Driver Flees After Accident, Victims Taken to MGM Hospital Key Points: – Car hits two children near Mango Big Bazaar, injuring them seriously – Injured children admitted to MGM Hospital, undergoing treatment – Driver fled after promising to meet at hospital, now unreachable JAMSHEDPUR – On Saturday morning, a car struck two school children near Mango’s Big Bazaar, leaving them seriously…

[architectnews]

NoMad London Hotel, Covent Garden

NoMad London Hotel, Covent Garden Interior Renovation, Building Restoration, Architecture Photos

NoMad London Hotel in Covent Garden

18 May 2021

NoMad London Hotel Refurbishment

Design: Roman and Williams

Location: 4 Bow St, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 7AT, UK

New-York based hospitality company, Sydell Group, opens NoMad London, the first international property for The NoMad Hotel brand, in the historic former Magistrate’s Court in the heart of London’s West End.

Located in Covent Garden, opposite The Royal Opera House, NoMad London takes residence in the Grade II-listed building famously known as The Bow Street Magistrates’ Court and Police Station. This is the brand’s most intimate property at 91 rooms including 21 suites, centred around several exquisite dining and drinking spaces in the NoMad tradition.

The property is the Sydell Group’s second venture in London, following the company’s partnership with Ron Burkle and Soho House to open The Ned. Sydell Group’s Founder Andrew Zobler, has earned a reputation for his ability to transform historic buildings into meaningful hospitality experiences that preserve their historic spirit and bring them back to new life. Sydell Group has partnered with Doha-based investment firm BTC to launch the London outpost.

Bringing together the finest creative talents in architecture, design, art curation, food, beverage, and hospitality, each NoMad explores the artistic, cultural and historic interplay between its home city of New York and European culture. In London, NoMad lends its residential warmth and casual elegance to the storied building, layering it with rich interiors and a playful spirit that is decidedly NoMad.

In collaboration with New York-based interior design studio, Roman and Williams, the transformation of the historic 19th century building draws inspiration from the building’s history and its location in Covent Garden, as well as exploring the artistic and cultural connection between London and New York. Grounded in this narrative, and an ethos rooted in creating voltage by uniting complementary forces, the masculine character of the historic architecture is animated with interjections of femininity, glamour, and a cosmopolitan spirit. This is expressed through richly textured fabrics, aesthetic woodwork and ethereal murals.

The opening of the hotel comes on the heels of Roman and Williams’ most recent opening of the British Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Robin Standefer, co-founder of Roman and Williams, says: “The spirit of the London NoMad is collected and fundamentally residential. It embraces a New Romanticism that has a powerful contrast with the grit and strength of the courthouse. From rich textured textiles to aesthetic inspired woodwork to ethereal murals, the space evokes a grand residence but always tempered with a bohemian spirit that Stephen and I infuse into every Roman and Williams project.”

Stephen Alesch, co-founder of Roman and Williams, says: “With all our projects we want people to feel comfortable and curious. On a journey of discovery that is familiar even if it’s from a dream they may have had. The Nomad is meant to be beautiful, bohemian and evocative all at once. The building is so powerful and remarkable that you are embraced by its strength, while the rich and textured interiors balance the bones. There is a tension between this muscularity and softness that creates a powerful narrative for the guest. There are many stories to discover and hopefully to create.”

NoMad London is also home to a world-class art programme that celebrates the influence of post-war American art and the European avant-garde. A collaboration with long-time Sydell creative partners, be-poles, the hotel accommodates a curation of over 1,600 collected and commissioned works by a variety of British and international artists that lends a deeply layered narrative to the hotel experience.

For the first time in a NoMad hotel, abstract art is featured in reference to the Abstract Expressionist movement, which represents a significant moment in New York’s influence on modern art.

Antoine Ricardou, founder of studio be-poles, says: “The art for NoMad London was carefully curated to explore the exchange of creative ideas between New York and London. The full collection is not only a unique ode to the neighborhood of Covent Garden and the Royal Opera House across the street, but to the NoMad’s American roots, creating a rich narrative that blends photographs, sculptures, ceramics, paintings, drawings and more.”

As in all NoMad properties, food and beverage plays an integral role in the experience with a host of dining and drinking experiences throughout and is overseen by Executive Chef Ashley Abodeely. The hospitality and dining room teams will be overseen by Food & Beverage Director and NoMad NYC opening alum, Chris Perone.

At the heart of the hotel, The NoMad Restaurant is housed in a lush, light-filled atrium evocative of an Edwardian greenhouse and is open five days a week (Tuesday to Saturday). Side Hustle is NoMad’s version of a British pub with a decidedly New York sensibility and a playful spirit, serving a menu of sharing plates paired with an agave-based list of spirits created by legendary mixologist Leo Robitschek and the award-winning NoMad Bar team.

The Library is the living room of the hotel where guests can enjoy light fare, coffee and tea, and cocktails amidst a thoughtful collection of books. Coming further down the line, Common Decency, is the first-ever NoMad lounge, and is nestled in a subterranean playground, offering a lively East London style craft cocktail bar complemented by elements of West End establishments.

NoMad London also offers over 9,000 square feet of elegant and adaptable space for weddings, events, meetings and private dining. The building’s original Magistrates’ Courtroom, now the Magistrates’ Ballroom, has been re-imagined as a formal space with two adjacent private dining rooms, a separate bar, and a dedicated entrance from the street using the original courtroom’s entrance.

A unique part of the hotel will also be the Bow Street Police Museum which pays homage to the building’s colourful past both as a police station for over 100 years and as a Magistrates’ Court.

Following government guidelines in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, NoMad London will adhere to regulations, including the appropriate PPE for restaurant and hotel personnel.

Room rates, starting from £455 Please visit thenomadhotel.com for more information

NoMad Hotels Grounded in the idea of the hotel as a great home layered with stories and animated by the collective spirit of its inhabitants, NoMad is our vision of an artfully lived life.

NoMad’s restaurants and bars celebrate the interplay between grand and intimate, classical and colloquial, festive moments of revelry and quiet meals that nourish the spirit. The offering is a reflection of the season, the place and the gracious, creative talent of the NoMad team that brings it to life.

Hotelier Andrew Zobler founded New York-based hospitality company, Sydell Group. In London, Zobler opened The Ned in partnership with Ron Burkle and Soho House. For NoMad London, he has partnered with Doha based investment firm BTC.

Sydell Group Sydell Group is the creator and manager of unique hotels deeply rooted in their location and architecture. Sydell’s core expertise is an ability to collaborate with original talent within the world of design, food & beverage, and retail, and bring them together in the creation of compelling new hotels that engage the communities around them. Sydell Group’s diverse portfolio of award-winning properties include The NoMad, New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas; The LINE LA, DC and Austin; Park MGM Las Vegas; and The Ned, London. www.sydellgroup.com

Roman and Williams Credited with disrupting the hospitality industry by creating an alternative to the ‘boutique’ hotel Roman and Williams is known for their work on such projects as Ace Hotel New York, The Boom Boom Room at the Standard High Line, and the historic Chicago Athletic Association Hotel. Their restaurants have received extensive praise, including Le Coucou, with Stephen Starr and Chef Daniel Rose, which was named New York City’s top restaurant of 2016 by the New York Times. In another project of cultural and civic significance, the firm is collaborating on the re-design of the British Galleries at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Roman and Williams has received numerous accolades for their approach, including the prestigious 2014 National Design Award for excellence in Interior Design and a recurring presence in Architectural Digest’s Top 100 Designers. Robin and Stephen were cited by Fast Company in 2016 as two of the most Creative People in Business.

be-poles and Portraits de Villes be-poles is a Paris and New York-based narrative design studio that breathes creative, 360-degree storytelling into hospitality and lifestyle brands. Their work encompasses architecture, interior design, branding, illustration, publishing, furniture design, amenity design and curating art collections for hotels, restaurants and retail spaces. Their clients include Sydell Group and NoMad Hotels, Four Seasons, Perseus Properties, Le Barn Hôtel, Hôtel Le Pigalle, Eleven Madison Park, Les Sources de Cheverny, Cyril Lignac, Moet Hennessy, and more. be-poles reveals the soul of a project, immersing it in graceful wabi-sabi, the Japanese philosophy that extols beauty in the impertinence of things, and the unexpectedness of happy accidents. For more information follow @bepoles on Instagram or visit www.be-poles.com. Shop be-poles-designed objects and books on www.shop.be-poles.com.

BTC Business Trading Company, also known as BTC was established in 1997 to fill the void which existed in Qatar for a retail environment offering the perfect mix of shopping, dining, and entertainment opportunities. Today BTC is famous both in Qatar and the entire GCC region for its proven expertise in the development and management of premium shopping malls, entertainment, real estate, and high-end retail brands. Ever since its inception, BTC has set exemplary high standards of excellence in all its areas of expertise. With the advent of every new project, the BTC has successfully raised and exceeded the standard it set.

Photography: Simon Upton

NoMad London Hotel, Covent Garden building images / information received 180521

Location: 4 Bow St, Covent Garden, central London, England, UK

London Architecture

Contemporary Architecture in London

London Architecture Links – chronological list

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Covent Garden Architecture

Contemporary Architecture in Covent Garden

NoMad London Hotel Design: Roman and Williams photo © Emsie Jonker NoMad London Hotel

PACATA PACATA London Restaurant

Covent Garden London Market Covent Garden London Market

Covent Garden Flower Cellars Design: Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates Covent Garden Flower Cellars

New Covent Garden Market in South London

New Covent Garden Market Railway Arches Building Renewal Design: Neil Tomlinson Architects photograph courtesy Neil Tomlinson Architects

Embassy Gardens image from Wandsworth Council Embassy Gardens – One Nine Elms

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Smithfield Market Architecture

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Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song Was Revolutionary on Every Level

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Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, which turns 50 this month, is the opposite of the definition imposed on it. The 1971 film inspired the Blaxploitation genre, but Melvin Van Peebles exploited no one but himself. He got the money together, wrote the script and the music, selected the shots, aimed the camera, and starred in the film. He even did the stunts and post-production editing. Everything that came after was a reaction to his revolution. The father of Black cinema is one of the godfathers of independent filmmaking, and he turned everything upside down doing it.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song defies all expectations. Unapologetically Black, it flips every stereotype back on itself. It reconstructs the constrictions of sexual identification. It wasn’t made for the institution. It was made for the people. “This film is dedicated to all the Brothers and Sisters who had enough of the Man,” reads the opening titles. That included the ones in suits at Hollywood studios. Even after the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, and Fred Hampton, the only African Americans people saw on the big screen were subservient to whites, or played by Sidney Poitier.

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was released a few months before Shaft. According to Howard Hughes’ 2006 book Crime Wave: The Filmgoers’ Guide to Great Crime Movies, Ernest Tidyman originally wrote the character of John Shaft as white, but director Gordon Parks cast Richard Roundtree in the role. According to legend, it was because of Sweet Sweetback. Because the two films were released the same year, they share categories, but not aesthetics.

“What does a dead man need bread for?”

Shaft was co-produced and distributed by MGM, a major studio. Van Peebles shot Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song in 19 days on a budget of $500,000, and had to personally ask Bill Cosby for a $50,000 loan to finish it. He worked on a sporadic shooting schedule, and had to rethink the film as it progressed because of the shrinking funds. After the success of his racially charged comedy The Watermelon Man (1970), Columbia Pictures offered Van Peebles a three-picture deal. The studio wanted more comedies, but the director had something far more hysterical in mind.

The story of the production is lovingly, and unflinchingly, told in Mario Van Peebles’ 2003 film Baadasssss!, which was originally titled “How to Get the Man’s Foot Outta Your Ass.” In the biofilm Melvin Van Peebles pitches a story about a live sex show performer working out of a Los Angeles whorehouse who becomes radicalized. The studio withdraws its offer, and Melvin hits the streets looking for independent backing, nonunion crews, and nonprofessional actors. He ultimately finds his delivery system in a porn producer, played by David Alan Grier.

We can trust Baadasssss! in its accuracy, Mario Van Peebles is Melvin’s son, and plays his father in the film, just like he did in Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song. The pornographic connection also resonates because Mario was 13 years old when he played the young Sweetback in the flashback segment which opens the film. The scene was censored in reissues because of the Protection of Children Act. Nonetheless, the production got around unions by disguising itself as a porn film, and was initially rated X by the MPAA when it first came out. Some theaters trimmed up to 9 minutes of sex before projecting the film. Ever an enterprising showman, Melvin Van Peebles used that to his advantage, hyping the movie as “Rated X by an all-white jury!” in promotions.

“No charge if you don’t like it!”

Melvin Van Peebles has been criticized for pushing the racist stereotype of the Black stud, but Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is as much an incursion in the sexual revolution as it is in civil disobedience. The counterculture guerilla war isn’t only about burning cop cars to cheering crowds, it includes the erotic socialism of the era’s radical cinema. The film opens with sexual suspense: Close-ups of women hungrily eyeing a young African American boy as he eats. They don’t want what’s on his plate, though. The very next scene shows him come of age as a sexual prodigy. Sweetback grew up in a cathouse, where he was on the menu for the female clientele. This also establishes Sweetback as submissive sexually, even though he is the character who holds the most power in the film.

The next scene further subverts the sexuality. The establishing shot shows two women putting on an erotic live performance for an appreciative audience. One of the women is wearing men’s clothes, as well as a fake beard and a hat, before she strips down to just a bra. During the on-stage sex act, they are visited by “the good dyke fairy godmother,” an effeminate man who waves his magic wand and turns the bearded lady into Sweetback. Van Peebles blurs the lines of magic, reality and sexual identity. This is reversed later in the film when the biker gang remove their helmets and are revealed to be women. The director subverts the myths of black masculinity further by having Sweetback sexually submit into power after being forced to service them all before they let him go. 

Van Peebles maintains he played the title role himself because no established Black actor would work for what he could pay, and because the character only has six lines of dialogue. He also couldn’t afford a stunt man, so Melvin performed all of the stunts himself, which also included appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. The cinematic social commentator contracted a social disease during filming, and successfully applied to the Directors Guild for workers’ compensation because he was “hurt on the job,” according to Darius James’s 1995 book That’s Blaxploitation!: Roots of the Baadasssss ‘Tude (Rated X by an All-Whyte Jury). The director used the money to buy more film stock.

When Van Peebles started out in film, he figured he “could make a feature for five hundred dollars” because “that was the cost of 90 minutes of film,” according to James’ book. When the director was young and couldn’t break into a segregated Hollywood with his early short films, Van Peebles was invited to Paris by Henri Langlois, founder of the Cinémathèque Française. He released the short film Les Cinq Cent Balles (500 Francs) in 1961. Van Peebles taught himself the language and wrote a number of books in French. One of which he adapted into his 1968 feature debut The Story of a Three-Day Pass, which starred Harry Baird as Turner, an African American soldier stationed in France. He is granted a promotion and a three-day leave by his racist commanding officer. The film explores the psychology of an interracial relationship, while critiquing racial attitudes in France.

Inspired by the French New Wave cinematic movement, Van Peebles approaches the narrative with the invention which comes with necessity. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was photographed in a variety of formats, half the film was shot on 35mm negative, less than half shot on 16mm which was blown up to 35mm. The camera is mostly handheld and goes in and out of focus. The cinematography is distorted by split-screen effects, negative images, double images, stills and dissolves. The psychedelic desert montage superimposes the psychology of the perpetual outlaw over the radicalized street hustler. Sweetback breaks all the taboos and presents a breakthrough in its picture of social discord.

“You been stirring up the natives, kid?”

The biggest name on the credits is the film’s real star: “The Black Community.” The villain of the film is the occupying army. Van Peebles presents an uncompromising dramatization of a threatening, abusive police force which are an adversary to the citizens of the streets they patrol. The only thing the cops know about their beat is who to beat, and that can be anyone. Late in the film, the police kill a Black man they mistake for Sweetback, when the cops learn an innocent man was shot, one says “so what?”

Sweetback’s initial relationship with the police is cordial, the body of a Black man is discovered in his neighborhood, Sweetback agrees to accompany two white cops to the station as a suspect to make them look good. The trouble starts when the cops mercilessly brutalize the young Black Panther Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales). Sweetback fights back. The hustler-stud assaults the white plainclothes cops with their own handcuffs. The Black Panthers saw this as revolutionary solidarity, declared the film required viewing for all members, who filled theaters, and ensured the film’s box office victory.

Those Baadasssss Songs

One of Blaxploitation’s greatest contributions to the arts is the art of the soundtrack. Among its many precedents, Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was the first film to capitalize on the marketing appeal of its music. And what a soundtrack. Founded in Chicago by Maurice White in 1969, Earth, Wind & Fire were a rising funk ensemble. Peebles’ secretary, who was dating one of the members, convinced the director to contact the group. Peebles collaborated on the music, and also performed under his alter ego, Brer Soul, which was also the name of his 1968 debut studio album. The director projected scenes from the film as the band performed. The soundtrack album came out on the legendary Stax label in anticipation of the film’s release to raise cash and get the publicity of radio airplay.

Without the soundtrack, the film may never have made it into theaters. But the strategy worked so well, artists like Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gaye, Bobby Womack, Donny Hathaway, and James Brown were brought in to compose music for movies. Up until this time, Quincy Jones was the only Black composer with major motion picture scores to his credit.

Music is crucial to the film’s design. The songs on the soundtrack album incorporate the film’s dialog as an instrument. Side One begins with “Sweetback Losing His Cherry,” which alternates between a gospel choir and urban funk while a vocalist lets loose with the happy moans of sex. “Sweetback Getting it Uptight and Preaching it so Hard the Bourgeois Reggin Angels in Heaven Turn Around” is pure psychedelic cacophony.

“Everybody profits.”

Van Peebles’ direction is not rudderless. It is fearless. Like the helmsman himself, who jumped off a bridge nine times before a stunt was declared perfect. He even stood off against the Hells Angels, when bikers brought a knife to an almost-gunfight on the set, demanding to be let off even though they’d been paid for the day. The film boldly features the casual systemic racism of law enforcement, from a police commissioner using epithets on live TV to the deafening of Sweetback’s boss Beetle (Simon Chuckster) who is deafened during interrogation when a cop fires a revolver next to his ear. The film still all-too accurately portrays how the Black community is persecuted by police.

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Because of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr., Fred Hampton, Malcolm X, and even Billie Holiday and Sam Cooke are now examined through a harsher cinematic lens. Their stories are being told without the whitewashing of polite censorship. Films about them include indictments which Hollywood would never have dared to portray had Van Peebles not opened the door. But the realities of George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, Philando Castile, Trayvon Martin, and countless others continue to assault everyday senses. Fifty years later, the film retains its shock value, which has paid off in vast dividends.

The ending promises a sequel which never materialized, but came to life through the movement it began. Though tagged forever as the first Blaxploitation film, Van Peebles called it “the first Black Power movie.” The filmmaker had complete control, artistically and commercially, the very opposite of exploitation. Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is a significant artistic, political and sexual statement, which is still revolutionary in the era of social justice warriors.

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